Preppy, The Life & Death of Samuel Clearwater, Part TWO (King)

by T. M. Frazier

  “Trish, right?” I asked, taking a step into the living room over a pile of rags. I side stepped the couch and tried not to let the disgust show on my face as I saw thousands fleas jumping up from the rug as I maneuvered around the garbage, my ankles under instant attack as they landed bite after bite. I pushed on.

  “That’s right. It’s Tricia but everyone calls me Trish.”

  “Heroin?” I asked, pointing to the needle on the side table.

  Trish looked up at me for the first time as if she were just noticing I was there. “None of your fucking business. You think just because you’re a stiff that you came come into my fucking home and take my kid for nothing? That you’re some how better than me ‘cause you’re not depending on a fucking needle to get you through the day?” Trish shook her head from and lit the butt of another cigarette from the overflowing ashtray on the side table to next to her chair.

  I stepped closer and knelt down next to her. I pulled up my sleeves and set my forearms across her bony knees. My touch startled her and she sat up as if I’d stabbed her. “I haven’t always been a stiff,” I said, using my eyes to point to the scars on the inside of my arms. “I know a lot more about how you’re feeling then you think I do.” Trish’s gaze roamed my scars. Her eyes met mine. “I’ve been where you are. I know what it’s like to have something so small take all the control when it comes to your life.”

  Trish looked like she was contemplating something. She sat back in her chair and I stood back up, pulling my sleeves back down my arms. She looked at her own arms then back up at me. “So you think because you used to be a junkie that you can bully me into giving you my kid? Is that it?”

  I shook my head. “No, I think that because you’re a junkie you understand why he’d be better off living somewhere where your addiction isn’t what he sees every morning and every night. Where heroin use won’t be his normal. Where the fridge will be full and so will his belly. Where his clothes will be clean and he’ll go to school every day. But most importantly, where he’ll be loved and that love will be more important than anything. It will come first...” I glanced down to the needle and spoon on the table. “Before any needle.”

  Trish scoffed. “My love for him comes before...”

  “Don’t bullshit me,” I interrupted. “That comes first, second, third...and only.”

  Trish’s shoulders hunched over even more. With a growl she grabbed a pen off the side of the table and was about to sign her name to the page when Preppy opened the front door and said. “Wait,” he said, throwing me off. I was about to ask him why when he turned and called for Billy who came in a second later carrying something in his hand. He walked over to Trish without looking around, without saying a word. I think it was the only time I’d ever seen him not smiling. He nodded for Trish to sign and when she was done he grabbed the pen from her hand. That’s when I realized what he was holding was a stamp which he pressed down on bottom of each page. He initialed a few lines under her signature, and with a nod to Preppy on his way out he left without saying a single word.

  I gathered the papers and handed them to Preppy who was still standing by the door.

  “You’re alright, kid. You know that?” Trish called out just as we were about to leave. “I knew you weren’t going to let that one over there kill me.” She flashed me a rotten toothed smile.

  “You’re right,” I turned back around and glared daggers at the reason behind poor Bo’s pain. I stared at her with all the hatred I could muster. “Because if you didn’t sign the papers and do the right thing by Bo, then I would have killed you myself.”

  Trish had the audacity to laugh. “So much for understanding a fellow addict,” she grumbled. “For a minute I thought you were like me. But you lied. You’re just another stiff making threats to get what you want.”

  I grabbed Preppy’s hand and turned back to Trish. “You’re confusing understanding for sympathy. I understand what you’re going through, but I hated myself when I was going through it and because of what you’ve put Bo through...I hate you even more.”

  Preppy helped me down the crumbling steps where Billy was waiting for us, leaning against the van.

  “Hang on a sec,” Preppy said, heading back up to the door, he opened it and disappeared inside, re-emerging just a few seconds later?

  “What did you do?” I asked, although I was pretty sure he didn’t kill her considering I hadn’t heard any gunfire.

  “She wanted payment for Bo,” Preppy said, with a shrug. He opened the van door and I slid inside next to a sleeping Bo who was sprawled out across the bench seat. His chest rising and falling in slow rhythm. “So I gave it to her.”

  “You gave her money?” I mouthed, not wanting to wake up Bo.

  Preppy smiled wickedly and with his hands on the roof he leaned into the van and whispered in my ear. “Nope. I gave her something she wanted more, and enough of it to almost guarantee she won’t ever be a problem for us.” Preppy kissed me on the cheek and slid the door shut, rounding the van.

  Heroin. He’d given her heroin.

  Preppy was right. As far gone as Trish was she wouldn’t be able to resist. The chances of her surviving until the morning were slim to...she’d be dead by morning.

  I waited for the familiar guilt that used to come all the time, even when it had no reason to. At any second I expected that inner voice of mine to tell me I shouldn’t allow Trish to die.

  Nothing.

  By the time Preppy popped into the passenger seat and Billy started the van I couldn’t stop the smile from creeping onto my face.

  As we pulled out of the trailer park Bo stirred so I pulled him onto my lap and softly stroked his newly cut hair. I took one last look at the dilapidated trailer as we pulled out onto the road, grateful that Bo would never have to spend another second there, never mind another night. The thing wasn’t fit for human habitation. Not for Bo. Not even for Trish.

  Bo snored lightly. Preppy leaned back and brushed Bo’s hair out of his eyes and with a loving look in his eyes he gazed down at his son.

  Our son.

  “I could’ve easily ended up just like her,” I whispered, feeling the tears prickling behind my eyes. Relief and happiness filled me with each rotation of the tires that brought us further and further away from that trailer park.

  “No, you could never have ended up like her,” Preppy argued.

  “You can’t say that; you don’t know that.”

  “You would never have ended up like her,” he said again. “Not fucking EVER.”

  “How can you be so sure?” I flattened my hand over Bo’s little cheek feeling the warmth of his skin against my palm. Preppy covered my hand with his much larger one, intertwining our fingers. I looked up to find his eyes glistening as they stared directly into mine. I felt his determination when he said, “Because I wouldn’t have let you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  PREPPY

  “I’m sorry it took me so long to visit,” I said as I stood above Grace’s grave, feeling my heart smack against my rib cage like it was angry with me for taking it along for the ride it never asked to go on, pounding against my insides to let him the fuck out.

  Too fucking late, motherfucker.

  “I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again, but this isn’t the way it ever went down in my mind,” I stuttered a sigh, my throat tightened painfully— I was barely able to swallow. I shoved my hands into my pockets and pulled them right back out. I kicked at the neatly trimmed grass with my boot then dropped down to my knees. I leaned forward, resting my hands against the low tombstone that was more like a plaque than an actual stone. I needed to be close to her, or what was left of her. I cringed, willing away the image of Grace as a decaying corpse that kept flashing through my mind.

  The sun began to set, casting a shadow over the small cemetery. A grounds keeper in coveralls rolled over a small green shade tent. He stopped a few plots down at a spot with no marking and tossed a shovel into the grass. With the toe
of his heavy yellow work boot he clicked a latch at the bottom of each of the four metal posts, locking the wheels in place. When he paused to wipe his sweaty forehead with a rag hanging from his back pocket, he looked over and his eyes met mine.

  “How you doing today, son?” he asked with a heavy Spanish accent. He shoved the rag back into his pocket and picked up the shovel, stabbing it into the ground. He started scraping off the top layer of grass, dumping it into an awaiting bucket.

  I glanced down to Grace’s plaque back then back up to the grounds keeper. “Not gonna lie, man. I could totally be a whole lot fucking better,” I said, my voice shaking with my grief.

  “Was that your mama?” he asked, gesturing with his chin to the plaque as he turned over another shovel full of grass into the bucket.

  I nodded. “As close to one as I ever had.”

  He nodded and continued working. “Sorry for your loss. I know it may not help, but death is just a part of life. We all die. Some before others. After working here for thirty some odd years I can tell you that death is not something to be sad about. It is something to be celebrated.” He put a hand to his chest. “In my culture, when a loved one passes, we throw a huge fiesta and we drink until we can’t feel our faces and then we dance and we make love under the stars and then we drink some more until we can’t feel the rest of our bodies. It’s about joy. It’s about celebrating life, not cursing death.”

  I leaned back and sat on my ass, not caring about grass stains for once. I picked at a few weeds, tearing them apart in my hands—tossing them back onto the ground. “For the first time in my life I can truly say that I’m not exactly up for a fiesta right now.”

  He paused his shovel and turned to face me, resting his chin on the wide handle. ’Diego’ embroidered on the right breast of his faded coveralls. “Grief is normal, but you can’t let it consume you.” Diego pointed off into the distance, where just over the cracked sidewalk that ran through the middle of the cemetery a middle aged woman with short blonde hair wearing a short white dress crouched down over a grave and set down a bundle of blue carnations. “You see her?” he asked. The woman began to openly weep, her shoulders jostling, her eyes shut tightly, her mouth contorting and twisting as she laid down over the grave. The sounds of her sobs were picked up by the wind, spreading her sadness over the already depressing graveyard. “She’s here every day at the same time— lays on her husbands grave and cries for hours and hours before she leaves, only to come back and do it all over again the next day. Always wears white like it’s her wedding day.”

  “So?” I asked. “I mean it would be odd as fuck if she were doing it in the middle of the truck-pulls or at the bingo hall, but isn’t crying kind of an expected thing at this place?” I shielded my eyes from the sudden presence of the sun peaking out from behind the slow passing clouds as it began to make it’s final descent for the day.

  “Her husband died seventeen years ago.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Yeah, exactly,” He resumed his shoveling. “Once you let yourself get lost in it there ain’t no returning from grief like that.” He looked back over to the woman and shook his head. “That’s why you need to celebrate and remember that you’re still alive.” He laid his shovel down and reached into a small red cooler, ice spilled over the sides as he pulled out a six pack of beer. “So what’ll it be, son? We celebrating?” He jerked his head toward the woman in white. “Or are you gonna let someone else’s death swallow up what little life you’ve been given on this earth?”

  “Who the fuck are you?” I asked, feeling a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. “You’re like the fucking graveyard Tony Robbins or something.”

  He shrugged. “Or something.” Diego raised the six pack in the air. “Choice is all yours man.”

  I glanced down at Grace’s grave, to my MOTHER’S grave, and thought about what she would want for me and instantly I knew it wouldn’t be sadness or tears. She always said she wanted me to be happy and in that moment I wanted to do anything and everything that she’d always wanted for me.

  I jerked my chin up to Diego and held out my hands. “What the fuck are you waiting for?” His face lit up, a single gold tooth glinted as he underhanded the beer my way. I caught it, but just barely, fumbling with the cold wet cans as they almost slipped free from my grip. “Diego Martinez,” the groundskeeper said, formally introducing himself as he sat down next to me and held out his hand.

  “Samuel Clearwater,” I offered, removing my hand from the beer and wiping it on my already grass stained pants before shaking the hand of my new alcohol providing grave digging life coach.

  Diego and I celebrated that night. And by celebrated I mean that we got shit faced right there on Grace’s grave. Not only did he have beer in that cooler but he also had a sizable bottle of unmarked tequila that I’m pretty sure he’d made at home in his bathtub because it tasted like pure gasoline. We were halfway through the bottle when the world faded away and I slipped into unconsciousness.

  The warm rays of the sun woke me the next day and then proceeded to blind me as I opened my eyes just a sliver, letting in only a small amount of the already much to bright light. “Buh,” I groaned. My own tongue tasted rancid, my mouth so dry it was as if I gargled with sand throughout the night.

  I sat up slowly and blinked a few times to better adjust to the assault on my senses. When I was finally able to open my eyes I discovered that was still in the cemetery, still sitting over Grace’s grave, but I was alone. There were no signs of Diego or his evil bottle of moonshine tequila, shovel, cooler, even the canopy he’d wheeled out the day before. The only sign he’d ever been there at all was the lingering hangover and the agony in my brain that felt as if an angry cat was using it as a scratching post.

  “See you later, Grace.” I whispered, resting my hand for a beat on her plaque and giving it a few taps before pushing to my feet. I took a few steps but then my head spun, the graveyard swirling around me. I paused and leaned on a nearby headstone to calm the spinning. After a few seconds I felt good enough to continue but when I straightened it was the name on the headstone I’d leaned on for support that caught my eye. “No fucking way,” I said out loud as I ran my hand over the name engraved in the stone.

  DIEGO MARTINEZ.

  I rolled my eyes at myself. “It’s a common fucking name,” I explained to myself, which was totally true. In Southern Florida I couldn’t swing my cock without hitting at least three Diego Martinez’s. Then I read what was written below his name and I jumped back from it like it had shocked me. Maybe I’d suffered a lot more mental trauma by the hands of Chop then I’d realized because I was a few ‘the sixth sense’ moments away from printing out my own one-way ticket to one of those nice and cozy padded rooms with no windows.

  Diego Martinez

  Loving father, husband, grandfather.

  Laid to rest in the grounds he cared for lovingly for over thirty years.

  Now watching over his hard work from his place in heaven.

  We celebrate his life.

  May 5th 1944 - June 17th 2016

  Delayed long term brain damage.

  It was the only explanation for both the hallucinations and the pounding headache.

  “Preppy...?” I loved hearing her say my name. I spun around to find the other person in the world who at times had me thinking I was going crazy. Because there, standing less than ten feet from me, wearing a strapless yellow sundress that flowed around her knees, was none other than the Doc herself, staring at me with a concern etched into her forehead.

  “You by chance didn’t see a grounds keeper around here did you? Grey coveralls? Looks like the guy from the Machete movies?”

  She looked around the empty cemetery. “No...should I have seen him?” she asked slowly. Her focus dropped from my face to the grass stains on my jeans. “Are you okay?”

  I held out my hand with my palm facing her. “Hang on. Gimme a sec, Doc.” With my head still thundering I shut my ey
es tightly and then open them again, sure enough Dre was still there, but since I was going crazy and all I didn’t trust my own vision and needed more evidence. “I’m going to ask you a question and I just need you to answer it for me okay?” I took a step forward and Doc flashed me a small white toothed smile, doing a shit job of hiding the concern etched into her black corneas.

  “Okay...” she said hesitantly.

  “Just tell me the truth, Doc...are you really here right now?” I asked still not believing that my girl was finally home with me.

  Dre looked down to her feet as if she were checking out to see where ‘here’ was. “Yeah, I mean. I think so.”

  “Just stay right there,” I ordered, not wanting to get my hopes up before I had solid evidence. I held out my arms straight, locking my elbows in a very frankenstein-esque stance. I moved forward slowly and didn’t stop until I smelled the lavender of her shampoo and my hands were resting on her shoulders. I squeezed my fingers, her soft skin was warm and very much alive beneath my touch.

  “You really are here,” I whispered, tipping up her chin so I could get a better look at the freckles on her nose.

  “I’m really here,” she said as if she really couldn’t believe it herself.

  “You’re really here,” I said again, interrupting her and giving her shoulders another squeeze.

  “Satisfied?” she asked, her eyes locking onto mine. The air around us grew thick and charged. Suddenly, touching her shoulders wasn’t enough.

  When it came to Dre it would NEVER be enough.

  “Fuck no. Not even close,” I admitted, resting my forehead against hers. “What time is it?” I asked.

  “It’s time. Everyone’s starting to show up at the house, even Kevin’s coming,” she said, pulling me by the hand. I still wasn’t sure if the kid was my brother but he was enough of a delinquent to definitely give me reason to believe it was a possibility. “I have to go pick up my dad from the airport, but I’ll be back. You sure you want to do this? Meeting the parents is kind of a big deal you know,” she said, biting on her bright red lip.